Among other hot topics, Fatigue and Weapon Sway have been - and still are - a matter of passionate debate within the both community and our own team. In Arma 3, they're core aspects of gameplay that simulate certain cumulative or rechargeable impediments that players must manage and that, ultimately, determine a player's combat effectiveness.

Over the past few weeks - and with the forthcoming Bootcamp Update in mind - we've tried to find ways to refine these mechanics in an attempt to create even more authentic and challenging gameplay. Now, we'd like to share our design goals and overall progress with you.THE BEST LAID PLANS

FATIGUE

Currently, fatigue mechanics prevent you from sprinting and holding breath when your level of exhaustion exceeds certain thresholds. This also increases the inherent weapon sway and, thereby, makes it harder for you to aim and shoot accurately. The new mechanics generally work the same way in terms of slowly accumulated impediment, however they bring some great new elements to it. Most importantly, there will be an 'animation slowdown'. This effect builds up according to the fatigue level and causes a player's movements to slow down by a certain non-linear degree.

The actual rate of slowdown varies greatly depending on specific actions and circumstances. Fatigued soldiers will be evidently slower and more cumbersome than well-rested ones. The fatigue level of combatants becomes a major factor in determining the results of an encounter, right next to the individual levels of skill, qualities of equipment and abilities of squad commanders. Managing fatigue becomes more important. It's also useful to note that all fatigue gains are intrinsically multiplicative; negative effects do not just stack, they accumulate like a snowball.

When playing with new fatigue, the main points to bear in mind are:

THINK ABOUT YOUR STANCE

Each particular stance you're in has a different influence over fatigue gain or decay.

Running with a raised weapon produces more fatigue than the same movement with it lowered.

Running in crouch is more demanding than running while standing, and the same applies for sprinting as well.

Rifles are obviously heavier than pistols, so movement with them is harder, but not as much as with launchers.

Running in crouch all day long is no longer the best default option to move around.

MANAGE YOUR LOAD

Both fatigue gain and decay are affected by the weight of equipment.

The more loaded down you are, the more fatigue you get from every exhaustive action. Moreover, the less quickly will your fatigue decay while resting.

A fully loaded soldier can barely rest at all!

Also bear in mind, that your inventory load has no direct impact upon your actual speed. However, it will cause the actual slowdown to take place much quicker and maintain its effect for much longer.

WATCH YOUR STEP

Always consider the terrain. Not only for cover, but also for fatigue.

The greater the slope, the more exhausted you will become by ascending it.

On the other hand, descending certain convenient slopes could actually restore some of your fatigue as well. "the natural formation of the country is the soldier's best ally" - Sun Tzu, Art of War.

WEAPON SWAY

Weapon Sway mechanics represent the inherent movement of a firearm in your hands. While the previous implementation had certain merits, we also felt it contained some important shortcomings. Mainly, we felt that it worked too randomly and unintuitively, crippling any skillful approach. Mechanics that just force you to fight with some randomly generated penalties applied have nothing to do with authenticity.

Instead, we want players to actually understand the game mechanics in order to give them an opportunity to learn and manage their behaviour. Therefore, we refined the sway behaviour to actually simulate breathing and grip as separate forces that affects your weapon sway in a more predictable - and thus manageable - way. This, we hope, enables more meaningful weapon handling. Your grip is not always rock steady. You have to maintain it to be able to place precise shots.

There are three main aspects of weapon sway to consider:

CONTROL YOUR BREATHING

Breathing moves your aim up & down with a magnitude and speed directly correlated to your current fatigue.

You may temporarily cancel this inherent movement by holding your breath.

How long you may hold it depends on the oxygen capacity left in your lungs, which is also affected by Fatigue.

Be aware that after you start to breath again - or if your oxygen is depleted by holding breath for too long - there will be a temporary spike in the breathing penalty, according to the proportion of oxygen left.

"Do you think that's air you're breathing now ?" asked Morpheus once. Well, in Arma 3, we do for sure!

THINK ABOUT YOUR STANCE (AGAIN)

As with fatigue, every stance also affects your aim in some way.

In general, you are more precise when crouched down than standing, and the most precise when prone.

Also basic positions (standing, crouch, prone) are slightly more stable when still, but yet more prone to distortion while turning around.

Adjusted positions are slightly less precise by default, but suffer less penalty from turning around.

MANAGE YOUR HEALTH

Exhaustion has a detrimental effect upon your sway by producing both inherent sway of your gun and your breath, simulating the hardship of handling a weapon when exhausted.

Injuries suffered do not affect your breath as much as fatigue, but their effect over your grip are much more profound.

While fatigue effect over sway is still quite manageable - at least to the point where you cannot hold your breath anymore - the effect of injuries could be potentially very severe for your ability to aim, depending on actual damage distribution over your body parts.

COMBAT READYThat wraps up the basics of the upcoming new Fatigue and Sway mechanics. Hopefully, these explanations will give you a better idea about what to expect and how to handle all these changes. We hope that such improvements will address all those players who asked for more profound mechanics of weapon handling and more demanding fatigue system for quite a long time.

These improvements, and even those already in preparation, are a direct product of your feedback, and its only upon your feedback we may continue to improve it even further! So, tell us if, how, and why, you like it (or not) on our forums. Are some of the effects too severe or too shallow? What other behaviour would you like to see implemented in these mechanics? Every (reasonable!) view matters and we are truly thankful for it, even though we cannot address all of you at once.

The Steam query network port is now fixed to be always +1 in relation to the game network port (e.g. a server hosted via port 3202, has its Steam query port at 3203)

Removed: Ability to define a custom Steam query port on servers

Fixed: Connection string to support joining friends on listen servers

Added: Server game and Steam query ports are presented to a host when creating a server in-game, in the RPT log and the Dedicated Server command window (forward these to make sure clients can discover / connect)

Creative Director Jay Crowe posted a detailed overview of the free Bootcamp Update coming to Arma 3 within weeks. Read all about the new modes, sandbox content and refined gameplay mechanics. Tomorrow we should be kicking off deployment of this content to Dev-Branch. While the specifics depend on a few dependencies between assets, we will begin with the sandbox content. This means the Virtual Reality world and its supporting objects, but also gear updates for the FIA faction, such as balaclavas. We think VR will not just work well for our tutorial modes, but also as a lightweight testing environment for modders and scripters. By stripping away all distractions, like natural terrain and objects, you can focus on just one thing - ideal for learning, development and testing!

Soon thereafter, we hope to also get the game launcher to Dev-Branch, and the add-on publishing tool to the Arma 3 Tools suite. Then the final step ahead of release will be to stage all the playable content. Voice acting recording has wrapped, so the team is doing final touches now. All in all, it's a good time to jump into Arma 3. Have friends who are still on the fence? Tempt them into getting the game today at a massive 50% discount in the Steam Summer Sale!

INTELLIGENCE

Bohemia Interactive today announced the donation that will be made to charity from the Karts DLC sales. One million Czech koruna will be donated to the Czech Red Cross. Thank you for raising this money for a good cause, while also providing us feedback to our strategy. We have done our first evaluations, created an action plan for tweaks and still intend to post a questionnaire to gather follow-up feedback.

We've posted documentation on the formatting of Steam's multiplayer queries, and how it differs to the GameSpy situation. This information can be used by third-party services to interpret and list servers information e.g.

OPERATIONS

Last week's 1.22 update contained a good number of "The East Wind" campaign improvements and fixes. Senior Designer JiřÃ­ Wainar presents them all in his first OPREP. You might not have made much use of the Patrol sections in the campaign on your first play through (triggered by walking off base / camp). With the addition of improved gear persistency, as well as vehicles and squads, Patrols are enjoyable side missions in-between the main scenarios. The "Survive" episode has also had Points Of Interest added to focus your Patrols a little. A lot of these improvements were based directly on player feedback. We hope you like your second run, or if you'd been waiting, are motivated to try it out!

Encoding Lead Petr KolÃ¡řannounced before the weekend that we'll be making a change to the weapon accessory muzzle configuration for the Bootcamp Update (1.24). He included updated documentation on the Community Wiki to make the transition as smooth as possible for modders. While it's a tough call to affect existing user-generated content, the benefits are worth it. Weapon-specific sounds for silencers will be supported, and several issues with fire modes get fixed. The change is already live on Dev-Branch since Monday.

Now that all branches have switched from GameSpy to Steam, it's clear that there are issues to address. Besides doing smaller fixes and working on supporting more Steam browser features, we are investigating how the game handles network ports. More so than with GameSpy, Steam requires the correct ports to be forwarded in routers so that servers can be found and connected to. Since the game allows custom port settings, it can sometimes be challenging to find out which ports need to be open. On rented servers it may not even be possible to access this configuration. We are experimenting with a different approach that makes it more clear which ports are used. Meanwhile, please take a look at the following documentation to resolve the most common discoverability issues. And to remind you about a solution to router flood issues, take a look here.

LOGISTICS

As of today, we're maintaining a new executable in Dev-Branch. Found in the root of the game, arma3diag.exe contains several diagnostic modes that may help modders with development and testing (e.g. visualizing PhysX properties and collisions, debugging animations, or tweaking particle effects). The EXE has its multiplayer component removed to prevent exploits in that environment.

We've recently applied the Dev-Branch approach to Arma 3 Tools as well. For the tools we will not be updating the branch daily, but rather on developer request (e.g. when something specific has been fixed). You can find its changelog here, and discuss the changes here.

To wrap things up, here are last week's 1.22 SPOTREP and 0.68 TECHREP. We made a small correction to the game's changelog. It mentioned a new ability to lock the UAV camera using Ctrl+T, but this has not actually made it in yet. It will be there for the 1.24 Bootcamp Update. While you're at the Dev Hub, enjoy the improved navigation and filtering implemented by our web guru Jervant Malakjan.

Korneel van 't Land informed us about Bohemia Interactive donation of one million Czech koruna from Arma 3 Karts DLC sales to the Czech Red Cros.

Prague, Czech Republic, Tuesday 24th June 2014

Bohemia Interactive today announced that one million Czech koruna from the Arma 3 Karts DLC sales will be donated to the Czech Red Cross. Arma 3 Karts, which was originally revealed as an April Foolsâ€˜ joke, was released about one month ago as a fun little sidestep in Arma 3â€™s typically military sandbox. Its primary purpose was to test Arma 3â€™s experimental approach to DLC, which Bohemia Interactive explained in more detail in their recent devblog.

Arma has always asked a lot of its players. Yet, although it can be a challenge, the depth and diversity of Arma's gameplay has long been one of its greatest strengths. Unlocking that potential, though, is no simple matter; nevertheless, this is the main objective of the Arma 3 Bootcamp Update.

Below, we set out the ways we've sought to achieve this goal. Ahead of its release (and the impending development-branch staging), we want to introduce Bootcamp's new modes, sandbox content, and refined gameplay mechanics. We'd like to share our motivations and present the benefits to new and veteran players alike.

Month-on-month, since launching in September 2013, Arma 3 has continued to expand its installed and active player-base. Recently, we passed the 1m copies mark and shared our roadmap for the next two years. The Bootcamp Update, then, is part of a longer-term view, part of a platform that we hope will continue grow for many more years to come. It's also just one piece of our ongoing development. Worked on in parallel with the Helicopters and Marksmen DLCs, the Expansion, and continuous optimisation and stability updates, it's a small but significant part of our combined efforts.

Of course, Arma 3 Bootcamp's new content builds upon pre-existing scenarios and helpers, too. Our Showcases are bite-sized introductions to a variety of gameplay, while the (recently updated) Campaign offers progressively more responsibility, challenge and complexity. However, rather than focus upon adding 'traditional' tutorials (something akin to those in Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead), Bootcamp's content is characterised by its variation. It includes singleplayer, multiplayer and non-gameplay components, together unified under a new item main menu: Learn.

Hi, guys! Recently, we've published some changes to the Arma 3 campaign. We'd like to discuss the motivations behind our work and share some of the features and improvements it has brought about.

During the development of Arma 3 and its campaign, we had to make many decisions about what we wanted to do and what was feasible in the given time frame. Although we strived hard to find a good balance between stability and extra detail, there were some things that we wanted to develop further. After Episode 3 was released, we identified certain campaign systems we felt that we could expand: gear persistence, interaction with the gear pool, and patrols.

PERSISTENT GEAR

Our original plan covered the items that have the biggest impact on gameplay (i.e., weapons, attachments and magazines), so we gave players the ability to gather such items and carry them from one mission into another.

- Early Headaches : Since - at the beginning of our development - not all assets were so solid, narrowing the selection to only the most important types of the gear also saved us a few headaches. We also wanted to make sure that players would always have the required gear for any given mission (imagine a player starting a scuba mission without a rebreather). For these reasons, I created a system that allowed a designer to set up any unit's loadout in the mission config and specify if the gear should be persistent or not.

The core idea was to make playerâ€™s gear and the gear of his squadmates persistent through whole campaign. Such persistent gear was taken from the base's armory when units were heading into the mission and returned back when they returned (if they survived). However, through testing, we discovered that having persistent gear on squadmates was actually viewed by our player-base as a bug.

- Splendid Iteration : Players often wondered why 'their' weapons disappeared, or where 'their' optics went, etc., missing the fact that their squadmates had the gear equipped. To counter this, we set up a simple rule: gear is persistent for the player and all units under his command. So, if player is responsible for the unit, he can equip it (via the briefing menu) and the unitâ€™s gear will be persistent.

*Survive: only gear on player is persistent; player doesn't lead a squad.*Adapt: playerâ€™s gear and gear on his subordinates is persistent.*Win: gear is not persistent for all missions not directly linked to each other; player and squad are usually rearmed between missions.

While this schema worked, it became obvious from the reaction of the community that persistent weapons, magazines and attachments were not enough. People wanted all gear to be persistent. The core campaign patching task was there.

- Adapt / Win : The issue was quite complex - and we wanted to be careful to make sure player's campaigns would always be playable and stable - but we made a plan to move forward:

1Â° We had to redo all the base compositions, adjusting the armory areas to make sure the new items would fit.2Â° Next, I had to extend my scripting API for inventory interaction to cover and correctly categorize all the new gear.3Â° Last but not least, we revised old scripting commands - extending their functionality - and created some new ones to cover all the needs that were raised.

Hopefully, it will feel natural to the new guys starting the Arma 3 campaign. And, for the veterans that have played the campaign and want to give it another try with these improvements, notice that there is a new cargo box on every armory with the stuff you were previously missing. There you can find all the uniforms, vests, headgear, goggles, backpacks and items you gather on the missions and patrols. Make good use of it!

PATROLS

The last big system we wanted to improve upon was Patrols. This was quite a big kind of beast - very 'sandboxy' stuff - that could be approached in many ways to different levels of detail.

From the feedback we got, it was obvious people wanted 2 things the most:

1Â° Proper handling of vehicles (i.e., the ability to go in and out of the patrol in their vehicle).2Â° Support for squads (i.e., no more lonely walks)!

Implementing those features to the existing campaign systems was not so trivial. It was by no means just adding parked car or two on the base compositions! The problem was more about creating a system for triggering the patrol with and without the squad and/or vehicle in a way everyone will understand. The goal was to find a solution that allowed us to add what we wanted, but avoid adding new menus and conversations. Different approaches were tried until we found one that did the trick and the drawbacks and limitations were acceptable.

- Triggers & Vehicles :We have now added the possibility to trigger a patrol by interacting with one of the new, dedicated vehicles and, also, changed what happens when patrol is actually triggered. Instead of starting the mission immediately, a start point selection screen is displayed instead. This is especially handy for situations where the player is starting a patrol from the middle of the hub by jumping into the patrol vehicle.

A quadbike has been added to every base in 'Survive' and 'Adapt'. If a player gets in, he will start patrol without the squad. The quadbike is persistent, so if player gets to the base on different quad, the former one gets replaced. On every base in 'Adapt', there is also an offroad dedicated for starting patrols.

- Squads & POIs : Squad selection mechanics are loosely linked to the way patrols are triggered. This allowed me to avoid creating new menus and conversations, yet still give players the possibility to go on patrol alone on foot, alone in vehicle. On the 2nd and 3rd base, where most Points of Interests (POIs) are available and new players know more about how to command their squad, there are several guerilla fighters in the vehicle: the playerâ€™s patrol squad. The squad and the (offroad) vehicle are persistent. If a squad member dies, he is gone and must be replaced. Take care! There are a limited number of replacements available.

Thanks to my colleague, VaÅ¡ek Oliva, who made the compositions, we were able to add several POIs to the patrols in 'Survive' (Episode 1). There are also some new micro-compositions there, so the patrols in 'Survive' should now look more lively.

POOL INTERACTIONS

Extending gear persistence to all items was just the first step. Another big issue that brought a bunch of complaints was the way the player interacted with the armory; specifically, the automatic re-equip for the next mission.

- Step by Step : From the beginning, we wanted to give the player some freedom about what equipment to take into the next mission, yet, maintain some control over it to ensure he will be able to complete it. The obvious solution was to give the suitable gear to the player before he leaves the base and allow him to re-dress afterwards. This was a simple fix, but not ideal; testing demonstrated that the continuous re-dressing turned out to be quite annoying. So, this became our #2 issue to fix.

I sat down with the mission designers and created a list of required gear for each mission. It turned out that only few of those missions really needed a specific item or piece of gear to complete. So, the definitions can stay quite vague, giving players the freedom of choice they were asking for. With the specifics of every missionâ€™s required gear, I could finally start writing the new system. While working on it, I also revised the current mission flow for the bases and created the dynamic navigation system.

- Take Two : Now, when you select the mission and complete the briefing, you are no longer teleported directly to the armory and re-dressed. Instead, your gear is scanned and compared against the missionâ€™s required gear. If you have everything needed for the mission, you are directed towards the assembly point. If you donâ€™t have the gear on you (or you 'lose' the required gear on the way to assemble point), you are automatically re-directed to the armory, and you simply cannot leave the base.

When you get to the armory, the list of required gear is shown to you, so you can quickly check what you were missing. During the first visit, you donâ€™t need to search for it; the gear is given to you automatically (and, in case you want to try the mission with the recommended gear, you can still get it by interacting with the armorer character).

- Cargo Improvements : That wraps up the major improvements to the campaign. Of course, we addressed numerous other issues and made tweaks here and there (which you probably will not even notice unless you suffered because of one of them), but that is nothing cool to write about.

So, in case you are thinking about giving the campaign a second try - or if you didn't try it yet - grab your favourite weapon, take the gear of your choice, and smash through The East Wind. Good luck, soldier!

Time for another main branch update! Later this week, we'll be deploying version 1.22. It's primarily a maintenance update (the last one before Bootcamp Update), but it does have a few highlights. Designer JiřÃ­ Wainar has wrapped up improving the campaign hub mechanics, with fixes to persistent gear and additional options during off-hub Patrol (vehicles and squads). An OPREP will detail these changes soon. Linux server admins should see a serious FPS boost thanks to optimizations by programmer MariÃ¡n Krivda. And this is the update that will remove GameSpy technology and make Steam the default MP implementation (documentation on server queries inbound). If you'd like to get a preview of 1.22 and help us through final testing, you can temporarily download a special Steam branch 'Release Candidate Build' (access code Update122Arma3Splendid). That is the exact version we're testing for release, though there is no changelog available yet.Oh yes, as much as many of us love following the football World Cup in Brazil - Arma 3 Balls will not turn into a real DLC. Perhaps an idea for a #MakeArma entry?INTELLIGENCE

A recent script command let's you open a YouTube video directly in the Steam overlay (if enabled). openYoutubeVideo gives quite a bit of control over the various options, since you don't just provide the video ID, but other playback parameters as well. For security reasons we have restricted its use to outside scenarios only (e.g. in the game's UI or a mod's UI). We'll be using it ourselves to link & play the Community Guide series from within the game in Bootcamp Update.

OPERATIONS

Community member Westonsammy posted a poll on the forums asking everyone what they think we should focus on for Arma 3's continued development. We have formed our internal road map and presented large parts of it, however, it's certainly interesting for us to see what you think our priorities should be. We know it's not the first nor will it be the last thread of its kind, but cast a vote and discuss away!

LOGISTICS

Bootcamp Update is reaching its final stages of production. MOCAP was done a little while ago, and we are recording voice actors this week. Then the playable content designers will have all content to finalize their scenarios and get them through testing. We'll likely be staging parts of the package on devbranch quite soon after update 1.22, starting with the sandbox aspects.

The F3 team is pleased to announce the release of v3-1-0 of its mission development framework, our most significant release yet.

We've added and improved many features; highlights include:

[list][*]Reworked folder structure: now F3 is more modular than ever.[*]Radio Systems Support: use ACRE or TFR via mission parameter. [*]F3 Simple Wounding System: ArmA 2-like medical system and dragging.[*]AI Caching: reduces server load by automatically caching distant enemies.[*]F3 Spectator Script: now with player tags, maps and a smoother camera. [*]Premount: fast and flexible way to premount troops in multiple vehicles.[*]MapClick Teleport: highly configurable, now supports HALO insertions.[*]Mission Conditions: Improved to take full advantage of improvements made in Arma 3.[*]AssignGear: Streamlined to ease modification of uniforms, backpacks and attachments.[*]Fixed issues with JIP and respawn, and implemented an improved JIP component.[/list]

To make it even easier to start using F3, we've updated our fully illustrated online tutorials for making adversarial and coop missions.

Added Admin Briefing component:- Lists endings and allows admin to invoke them by clicking a link.Updated E&E Check component:- Allows passing of side instead of array.- Groups/units are now passed as an array of strings to prevent script-errors.- Optional boolean (last parameter): toggle if to check playable units only (default: true).Updated the F3 Simple Wounding System component:- Made the release action created on yourself so its always around.- Tweaked SetDowned.- Added longer delay before system starts to allow for desync'd players..Updated F3 Spectator Script component:- Modified the freecam to use correct height in follow-mode.Fixed typo in AI Skill Selector component.Fixed error in Radio Systems Support component.

3-1-0 RC5 | 11 JUN 2014

Added Radio Systems Support component (replaces ACRE support component):- Supports ACRE and TFR systems via single mission parameter.- All radios cleared to avoid duplication of radio items.- Optional: radio frequencies split based on unit's side.- Spectator chat correctly handled for all players.- Radios assigned based on assignGear calls (from unit init).- ACRE only: vehicles filled with radios, depending on size.- New component works separately from the F3 Folk ARPS Assign Gear Script component for locality purposes.Updated Fireteam Member Markers component:- Team colours are now assigned in arrays at top of script (easier to modify, same functionality).Updated Join Group Action component: new notifications.Updated ORBAT Notes component: - ORBAT lists vehicles, crew and any loaded elements.- ORBAT lists individual medics (under their element leader).Fixed F3 Spectator Script component:- Fixed issues for players joining into spectator mode during a no-respawn mission.- Fixed various tags and camera issues.Fixed several components for use with JIP/respawn:- Fireteam Member Markers component.- F3 Folk ARPS Group Markers component (specifically for specialist markers).- Join Group Action component.

About two weeks ago, our CEO Marek Å paněl, tweeted into the world that the Arma 3 player community is now over a million strong. We're excited to have you all playing the game in many different ways, from traditional military coop, to completely different ways of building out the platform! It has also occurred to us, that not all of you are yet familiar with how we update the game. Let's go over the basics:

The main and default version on Steam receives a larger game update approximately once per 3 to 4 weeks. If you haven't disabled Steam's automatic updates, there's nothing for you to install manually. Just let the game update and you're good to go. On update days you may experience brief interruptions in multiplayer services, while servers and mods update their data.

We do also pride ourselves on updating the game daily. If you're interested in the freshest developments, fixes and additions, you can opt into a Steam 'beta' branch via the client.

Caution! This is an experimental and largely untested version that contains data directly from individual team members as they work. Some times a part of this version can be completely broken. Do not use this branch unless you would like to participate testing or are otherwise interested in it. We thank those who do and who have helped us catch errors ahead of big releases!

Main branch updates are the culmination of 'devbranch' versions, community testing and internal QA. It is the recommended version for most players.

In the games industry as a whole, this week is all about E3. We have chosen not to deploy a battle bunker in Los Angeles this year. Instead, the month or so of hard work that goes into prepping the game for such expo, is poured directly into the various upcoming releases - Bootcamp, Helicopters DLC and the Expansion terrain.

INTELLIGENCE

The Report In! developer interview series is picked up again by Audio Lead Jan DuÅ¡ek. He explains a few of the audio technology changes compared to previous Arma games, where we get our samples, and how far the radio protocol has come since Arma 2! He wraps up with a look at the series' music, created in cooperation with audio designer and composer Ondřej Matějka. We're quite glad to have been able to expand our audio team, both for Arma 3 and the whole company. It allows us to give some more love to sounds over the coming years.

June's Make Arma Not War newsletter is out! There's an update about add-on support for both the contest and the game itself. We really hope to get the first version of the game launcher out on devbranch this month, as well as to release its companion publishing tool in the Arma 3 Tools suite. Please do read the section about the use of third-party content - it's ultimately up to contestants to not violate licenses and be fair. Direct cooperation with contestants has been good so far; let's continue that trend!

A number of people have reported that the Steam server browser is taking very long to list servers, or is blocking other traffic in their routers. There are thousands of servers, all queried for information about their status (scenarios, players, mods, etc.) - by comparison, GameSpy had a limit of listing just 500. Some routers identify this traffic as a form of flooding spam and shut it down. Take a look at this Steam support ticket for a possible work-around. We continue to try to improve our Steam server browser implementation.

LOGISTICS

Related to the above, we've now passed the date that GameSpy officially was supposed to switch off its master servers. While the servers were still up afterwards, we have proceeded to remove their technology from the game (on devbranch now and in the next game update). We thank GameSpy for providing their services for as long as they have! Read more about how the transition is handled for various Bohemia Interactive games in this forums post (including a web-based server browser for older games).

Based on community feedback, our encoders have added a new config parameter to all Karts DLC assets: DLC = 'Kart'; Modders and scripters can read this entry and process in-game assets however they please. Do note that this is not an engine-required entry, but rather convenient meta-data. It should not be fully relied on outside of the vanilla game.